Now that the gigantic metal bean in Millennium Park has been fully polished, most Chicagoans have no need for secondary entertainment. Day after day they flock at the bean's summit, gazing into its smooth surface for hours at a time, cramming their pockmarked and broken faces in front of the reflected cityscape. Traffic on Michigan Avenue comes to a standstill each morning, as those possessed by its enchanting curves pour out of buildings and alleyways, a swelling mass that can only be satisfied by the unholy grandeur of twisting metal. Mothers clutching infants stand in the park, paralyzed with fear as the crowd approaches, and are trampled without pause. The frontrunner of the mob raises his pike in the bean's direction and offers the freshly-sacrificed head of a plump sow as offering to the bean. It is only then that the true voice of the Beangod can be heard, and she sings a pure reverie of erotic destruction, a song no mortal can ever hope to silence, and when i erase my corporeal form to fully ordain the fenestration of souls.

...Wh ...where am I? Shit, sorry guys. I had a nice little opener about Chicago set up, but then I got on the phone with my landlord and got kind of distracted from writing. What I was meaning to say was that the new Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago is going to be holding a two-day symposium on whack-jazz-afro-futurist-extraterrestrial musician Sun Ra. "Traveling The Spaceways" is its name and will include musical performances, readings, and even panel discussions, with titles like "The Sun Ra Diaspora: Art After Ra."

The symposium kicks off at 10 A.M. on Saturday, November 11, but a special concert will also be held the night before, billed as "Music For Tomorrow's World: A Dedication To Sun Ra" and featuring Thurston Moore as its headliner. I guess Thurston has some extra time in between curating festivals with ridiculous line-ups that are in far-off places that I don't have enough money for, and even if I did, they're in faraway places that I could never get to unless of course I invoked the abiding spirit of Frau Beangod who neither sleeps nor rests but enters my soiled bed at night using pliers and a thin raspy whisper.

Last weekend while attending an elegant performance from Broken Social Scene, lead singer Kevin Drew went on and on with some rant about the Pope and how pedophiles only listen to Jimmy Buffet. He continued to get the crowd riled up by speaking of Fraggle Rock.

After hearing all of the drunken cheers of the audience, I thought about how cool it would be if someone would make Fraggle Rock into a feature-length film. I later that night prayed to God to make this wish come true. Days later, I discovered that God had made my wish come true, with a little help from Ahmet Zappa (son of... uh...).

Here is the formal letter I have written to God:

Dear God,

I know you're listening to me and answering my prayers. I really appreciate it, dooder. I see that you have answered one of my recent, more outrageous prayers. I also think it is swell and all that you have summoned Ahmet Zappa, son of Frank Zappa, to executive-produce a film about the glorious Fraggles, along with the Henson kids.

See, my problem with this is that I was just really drunk when I asked for this. You know how things seem like a good idea at the time when you're wasted. Remember that time in college? Yeah, exactly.

They want to have the Fraggles venture out of the rock and into the "real world." Yeah, there will be puppets and human actors interacting. This is unnecessarily capitalizing on a commercial success. It would never work for today's audience.

The only miracle that could save this film is if it became an anti-war vehicle and tolerance epic. I can see it now; people won't accept the Fraggles at first. Many men will not share the same urinal as Boober, and women will not know how to interpret the trans-gendered Mokey.

Signs will read: "We Serve Vanilla Coke, But We Don't Serve Fraggles." This will lead up to an all out war between Devendra Banhart and the Fraggles (good) and David Duke and the Gorgs (evil). There will be music, celebration, and most importantly there will be a meaningful lesson that we are all the same deep down inside. Everyone will learn to feast on radishes and "doozer sticks" as one.

Of course, this has all been done before so this will all just be a disaster. Maybe we'll have to wait and see how Transformers does at the box office next summer before we go and ruin my childhood completely.

Wagwan bois and gyals, I iz here representin' Lady Sovereign, and I waz jus' stoppin' by to let everybody know dat she be goin' on a mad fit tour dis fall. Yo yo, check it – I has heard that she iz travelin' all across big man America and his bruvva from the north, Canada (where her pops iz from). All you eskimo bois, battymen, rude bois, gangstas, big batty gyals, nanna's bois, and even you crazy motherfuckas better get out to see the major playa, one n' only S.O.V. when she comes spittin' through your town.

Not only iz she flowin' in her 5'1" frame cross country, but she be droppin' her debut album on motherfuckin' hallows eve, dis October 31st! Iz called Public Warning and you can already get your grimy hands on some sick e-cards if you can't wait fo da real ting. She be cheeky but fly as a fuckin' flyin' fish, and she def ain't gonna take no shit from any o' yous smartass pricks. She sayin' so herself that "if you hate [her] then fuck you." So fuck you.

Go out and support da only feminist rhyma around and see Lady Sovereign wit her "hairy armpits," "big baggy T-shirt," and "non-existent bum" while she kick some misogynist American rapper arse in da U.S. of A(nonymity). Big S.O.V. iz here to stay. Big up yo'self and spin her shit at your next lame party.

On Saturday night at the Paradox in Seattle, someone walked backstage and took So Many Dynamos guitar player Griffin Kay's wallet, jacket, and cellphone. Whoever entered also took the following three guitars from the band's storage space:

"-1978 Gibson SG, tobacco sunburst finish. Guitar case has a Smokey the bear sticker on it

-Fender Squier Supersonic guitar, black with lots of wear, "Anyone can do this" sticker on back."

The band noted in their e-mail to their publicist that Griffin is "totally bummed."

If you know anything about the jerks who took it, message them at their MySpace. So Many Dynamos are a St. Louis four-piece and they just released Flashlights on Skronki Records this year. The album boasts a string section and a 30-member choir (not the Polyphonic Spree), pretty great for a jitter-pop band. Members of SMD have also played back-up for Emperor X. Catch the palindromic SMD and their Chris Walla-borrowed guitars at these remaining dates:

I've always hated the fact that if I want a virus quick and easy, I have to go to a porn site to get one. What's worse, though, is that 9-times-out-of-10 I have to download a grainy, 15-second video that ends just before the "release." Aside from the occasional virus, what's the point of the clip if it's not going to fully deliver, especially if I have to download about 20 of them (organized in dated folders within a hidden folder titled "porn vidz") before I even get the virus? Listen, I like the build-up too, but watching those clips is like Usual Suspects without the last 30 minutes. I want an assured climax.

Enter the big, bad boys of business. Last year, Sony-BMG made the first step toward offering free viruses. On select CDs, Sony-BMG included anti-copying DRM software that would secretly install spyware, rendering your computer susceptible to viruses and hijackings. Indeed, Sony-BMG stopped short of offering a virus itself, but its rootkit sure got the attention of the industry. Hell, because Sony-BMG didn't fully deliver, it has recently settled with an Ontario court to give $8.40, a replacement CD, and free downloads to thousands of customers who wanted to see the climax, not just the build-up. (A Quebec court has also recently approved of a class-action settlement.)

But exciting things are finally starting to shake the foundations of the industry once again.

Following Sony-BMG's lead, McDonald's and Coca-Cola in Japan were recently offering a portable MP3 player giveaway that gave away a completely FREE, totally awesome Trojan horse virus to roughly 10,000 lucky people. And all the contestants had to do was buy a large drink and submit a serial number! The MP3 players were pre-loaded with 10 free songs that would auto-load the Trojan during the sync process. Hackers, then, would receive usernames and passwords, with little-to-no effort. Of course, paradise is usually short-lived, so the giveaway is unfortunately no longer available. But it was sure beautiful while it lasted.

Of course, Apple wasn't about to fall behind on the virus game. Apparently, "a small number" of Video iPods available for purchase after September 12, 2006 contained one of my favorite all-time viruses, the Windows RavMonE.exe Trojan. (Precisely which Trojan virus is still not clear, but any dealing with RavMonE.exe is pretty sweet.) Oddly, though, Apple has stopped shipping the iPods and are even offering instructions on how to get rid of the virus. I be like, what the fuck? Has the world gone completely mad? Despite the confusion, those who wanted a virus got their virus, even if it was just a handful of people.

So, yes, the free virus offers are still relatively scarce, but it's nice to know that corporations are keeping eyes and ears on public demands. Perhaps if more news agencies actually reported this sort of stuff, more people would know about these wonderful viruses and then everyone would be as happy as, say, homeless people who can't afford housing, or low-income families that can't afford health care, or even Iraqi civilians. Until then, TMT is going to continue fighting the good fight, for we can't live without remote access Trojans and cryptoviral extortion attacks.

Writing something about a "Detroit-based SSM" may just be the thing to get me on some sort of "terrorist watch list." Now don't worry freedom lovers, I am not speaking about a Surface-to-Surface Missile, I am referring to the band that takes gritty, groovy, and driving rock, then adds some psychedelic sounds to the mix, creating some of the loudest music you could ever shake your ass to, SSM (Szymanski Shettler Morris). Fuck The Raconteurs, and don't even try with that D12 nonsense, this is the real supergroup from the D. The three guys in the band, John Szymanski (vox/keys), David Shettler (percussion), and Marty Morris (vox/guitars) are (or have been) in some of the best Motor City bands of the last few years (The Hentchmen, The Sights, The Paybacks, Cyril Lords). Combining their skills has defiantly taken the tired sound of "garage rock" to a new level.

After 2005's limited-pressing LP (500 copies), LP 1, the band released their proper debut, SSM, this year on Alive/Bomp. Now they are set to release a new six-song EP, EP 1, on November 7. The extended player features "Put Me In" from the self-titled record, alongside five unreleased songs. Three of the tunes were engineered by Dan Auerbach from The Black Keys, reprising his role from LP. Jazz/Funk/R&B legend Lyman Woodard even plays organ on the band's cover of his song "Belle Isle Daze."

SSM are currently playing shows, which included a stop at the much-ballyhooed Arthur Nights Festival. Oh, and don't worry about me and the whole "terrorist watch list" thing, either; watching me would definitely be a marathon of boring, akin to having to keep an eye on those evildoers on the high school golf team, or being assigned to keep watch over Ladybird Johnson's grave.